Wheel motor covers are designed to protect the trucks' rear-wheel motors from dust and debris. However, the conventional ones, which are usually made from conventional plastics or fibreglass, can be prone to damage.
At one Hunter Valley mine the operator had been discarding as many as 32 broken and unusable plastic covers a month. The conventional wheel motor covers are expensive to replace. Of the 14 Rhinobags it purchased, only five had needed replacing.
The Rhinobags are made, in part, from Kevlar and come as a seven-piece kit. This in itself is an improvement.
One of the problems with wheel motor covers is that they are often damaged by the impact of other machinery during loading. It is a relatively common occurrence for wheel loaders to roll into trucks while emptying their buckets in the tray. These impacts can knock the wheel motor covers loose and deform the face part so it cannot be replaced.
The Rhinobag's face is designed to be flexible and pop straight back out after an impact. Because they come in kit form, if the face is damaged it can be replaced easily with the rest of the wheel motor cover left in place.
The full Rhinobag kit weighs less than 9kg and DV Logic says it is easy to install.
Former Muswellbrook Coal maintenance manager Peter Chorley said the Rhinobags had made a big difference.
"For one thing they are about one quarter the weight of the original GE wheel motor covers, which helps from a manual handling point of view," he said. "The main drama we had was we had front-end loaders running into the covers and they’d break them or punch holes through them.
"We hardly ever had to change the Rhinobags."
Chorley said Muswellbrook was running 11 trucks, meaning it needed 22 wheel motor covers.
When fitted, the outer layer of the Rhinobag wheel motor cover is inflated by air blowing through the motor from the cooling fan, which helps keep the motor and ancillary equipment dust free. Rhinobags also come with a reflective strip to improve safety, particularly during night shift operations.
They are designed to help workers detect problems. In the event of severe emergency braking, the plastic mesh vents on the side of the Rhinobag are designed to melt. When truck drivers perform their daily inspections, the melted vents will prompt them to notify a field service fitter to check the wheel motors for damage.
DV Logic director Darcy Saville said the company had proven itself in the Hunter Valley and was now looking to new markets. "We haven't scratched the surface in the Bowen Basin yet," he said.
Saville said Rhinobags were impact- resistant and flexible.
"Ours last 10 times longer than the original wheel motor covers," he said. "Once people take them on they're more than happy with them."
